Hello guys n gals. After struggling for a long time with rq3 I'm keen to venture back in to fantasy gaming again. I thought I would dive in to the Legend rule set. These I am pleased to say I rather like. This said I am hunting for Glorantha stuff. Big mistake there then. I am so confused as to what the hell is going on with which version is which and what id compatable with what.
I wanted to go second age, is the 'glorantha core' rule book with scroll and sword on the cover any good/use? Can it be used with Legend? Is it RQ 2 or the original mongoose? I am utterly bamboozled by the whole thing. Teach me to come to the party late I suppose.
I still have mounds of my 3rd age stuff including all the TORM ect, just fancied a 1000 years earlier.

The Second Age stuff is definitely usable with legend and can provide a lot of good background. You can pretty much use anything from Second Age Glorantha with Legend with very few, if any, changes.

Early Second Age material is compatible with RQM1 and is slightly different to Legend, later supplements are for RQM2 and are very compatible with Legend.

A quick Summary, MRQ1 was the first Mongoose RQ ruleset and had, shall we say, issues. MRQ2 was a rewrite that took it on a different path and was much better. Legend is effectively MRQ2 under a different name. RQ6 takes the fundamentals of MRQ2 and moves them further along the same path. So, RQ6/Legend/MRQ2 are fairly compatible and can easily be used with each other.

The Glorantha Core book is good and can be used with Legend very easily. There are some niggles with how it interpreted Glorantha, but nothing major. It is definitely usable and useful.

Legend and RQ 6 are very similar, both being derived from the same common rule system (MRQ2). There are some subtle differences, but you can pick up material from any of these three systems and use them with minimal conversion. I do recommend picking up the RQ6 essentials PDF to see if you like that take on the system:

Now, just to confuse everyone Chaosium is working on a new edition of Runequest based upon Runequest 2 from the late 1970s that will be tied exclusively to Glorantha. As a consequence, RQ 6 is being re-branded as Mythras - leaving Mythras and Legend as the two games now continuing the line of development began with MRQ2.

Big thanks for that. I followed up some of the links and found a mine of info that will help launch my Fonrit RQ game. I checked the dates of when I did start playing RQ and it was earlier than I thought, back in 1980! The mongoose stuff is so easily accessable for a lazy old fart like me that I've dropped a load of money on ebay and grabbed a pile of books to keep me going.

I also put in interest for the reprints of Glorantha guide. Falling back in love with the place again. Bit of a sad mid-life crisis as they go

Must say with so many varients for Glorantha it seems to shoot itself in the foot if you ask me. Trying to get a group of players and then trying to decied which system to go for can be a headache. I wanted to get away from RQ3 which was flawed, but all the old players at least know it. A pity, but with too many conflicting systems I feel it will never get back to its hayday. Original-RQ2-RQ3-Mongoose-MRQ2-Legend-RQ6-Mythras-RQ2, Oh dear.
I've made my choice with Legend. I might have gone for RQ6 but availability is an issue. My players are willing to shell out for a Legend rule book after a bit of whipping, any more would be pushing it. Pity I missed the frenzy a few years ago.

legozhodani wrote:Must say with so many varients for Glorantha it seems to shoot itself in the foot if you ask me. Trying to get a group of players and then trying to decied which system to go for can be a headache. I wanted to get away from RQ3 which was flawed, but all the old players at least know it. A pity, but with too many conflicting systems I feel it will never get back to its hayday. Original-RQ2-RQ3-Mongoose-MRQ2-Legend-RQ6-Mythras-RQ2, Oh dear.
I've made my choice with Legend. I might have gone for RQ6 but availability is an issue. My players are willing to shell out for a Legend rule book after a bit of whipping, any more would be pushing it. Pity I missed the frenzy a few years ago.

*climbs of rant box and shuffles back to hole*

Although the current situation is far from ideal, most d100 games are rules-light in comparison to games such as Pathfinder or recent editions of D&D (including 5e) so it is easy to borrow concepts from one of them and use them in the others. If you are interested specifically in Glorantha, the upcoming new Chaosium edition of RQ may be to your taste as it is optimised specifically for the Glorantha setting (almost to the exclusion of of other settings). By contrast, Mythras (formerly RQ 6) takes a 'kitchen sink' approach, providing you with the tools to build whatever kind of fantasy setting you want.

And where does Legend fit into this ecosystem? My view is that it is best used as a "gateway product" with a low price point that is awesome for introducing new players to the d100 game system. And the fact that it's released under the OGL means that third-party publishers can tinker with it to their heart's content.

In this sense the apparent fragmentation of the d100 community isn't a bug - rather, it's a feature

I agree with most of that, with a caviat. It is all those things if you know the system and are keen to check. The casual players are far less likely to know/care. I've not seen a D+D book since '79 so can't speak as to how complicated it is now.

After playing RQ2 and then RQ3 I needed to move on. The system wasn't working and I finally cracked. I've made my choice so I will have to sit with it. Just a pity Glorantha could never settle properly and flourish as it should. Many reasons and people behind that.

Now to crack on with some reading and then inflict a test game on the poor players. Then off to Fonrit, poor lambs